U.S. Department of Transportation

It's Confirmed: NYC's Bike Share Program Will Start On Memorial Day

We remember when it was supposed to be July 2012. Then we heard maybe it'd be March 2013. That didn't happen. Then the Department of Transportation released a map of where the 293 stations would be built. And we heard it would be some time in May. So we were kinda/sorta convinced: New York City's bi ... More >>

The CitiBike Program to Arrive Sometime in May

Now that we have a map of stations and a confirmation from the Department of Transportation that absolute tourist mayhem won't break out, it looks like we finally are seeing this CitiBike program come into fruition with a definite arrival date. Janette Sadik-Khan, DOT commissioner, told reporters a ... More >>

The CitiBike Program Has A New Map So Maybe It Is Really Happening

We haven't forgotten about the CitiBike plan. Even after it got delayed once (thanks computer glitches). And then again (thanks Sandy). Now, the expected release date is this July for New York's first citywide bike share - a program that Mayor Bloomberg is still whatever about. Keyword: expected. B ... More >>

Spectra Busted for Neglecting Pipeline Maintenance

As we wrote in this week's paper, Texas-based gas giant Spectra Energy is building a high-gauge, high-pressure natural gas transmission pipeline right into the heart of the West Village. That makes some people nervous, because pipelines like this seem to explode all the time, and when they do it ca ... More >>

Will a New High-Pressure Gas Line Help New Yorkers—Or Blow Them Up?

Pipe Bomb

Look At The (Possibly) New And Shiny Tappan Zee Bridge

At the end of the summer, we reported on the story surrounding Governor Cuomo's ambitions to rip down the Tappan Zee Bridge, the span of cement that connects Rockland and Westchester County, and start from fresh. Last time we checked in, Andrew was furious about the Department of Transportation's de ... More >>

Department of Transportation Hits Back At John Liu's Bike Share Criticism (UPDATE)

Yesterday, the Voice brought you news that Comptroller John Liu vehemently slammed Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration and the Department of Transportation, claiming that City Hall had not done enough to promote safety with New York's forthcoming bike share program. "Recent studies have found ... More >>

Deadly Delancey: What To Expect With The Street Safety Plan

In January, 12-year-old Dashane Santana was struck and killed by a car as she crossed Delancey, at Clinton Street. Santana was not the first pedestrian to perish on the busy road: Other walkers and many cyclists have died on Delancey. At the intersection of Delancey and Essex, for example, Transpo ... More >>

Mayoral Hopeful John Liu Goes After City's Management of Staten Island Ferry Boats, Says Money is Being Wasted on Problematic Fleet

City Comptroller John Liu took a trip to Staten Island today to criticize the city's management of new ferry boats that he says have been chronically out of service and have wasted taxpayers' dollars. The announcement was a chance for Liu, who is expected to run for mayor in 2013, to get his name ... More >>

City Tackles Drunk Driving By Giving Away Debit Cards Today In Queens and Brooklyn

Free money! As part of its campaign against drunk driving, the city's Department of Transportation has launched a "Safe Rides Home" giveaway promotion with thousands of free taxi, livery, and public transit rides in honor of, what else, March Madness. It's a part of this slightly oddly-named init ... More >>

Free Bikes! New York Gets Wheels When Bicycle Sharing Program Debuts Next Summer

David Edgar​Now you finally have a reason to belch one Queen song at the top of your lungs. (And no, it's not "Bohemian Rhapsody.") New York's plans to let loose 10,000 free bikes on the streets are slowly taking shape. In November, the Department of Transportation announced a plan to develo ... More >>

Questions Surround Fallen Billboard On BQE

viaA tweet from around 2:30 p.m. today.​A day after a billboard came down on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in high winds between Meeker and Metropolitan Avenues, there are lingering questions about the structure.

100 Most Powerless New Yorkers

A 'power list' for the rest of us

Hurricane Irene Damages to be Fixed with $90 Million in Federal Money

​As we ring in the new year, Hurricane Irene may seem like a distant memory from warmer, rainier days. But recovery from the damage is not done! And New York has officially secured millions of federal dollars to rebuild. $90 million, to be exact. Well, to be EXACT: $89,751,296. The U.S. De ... More >>

New York's New Traffic Safety Haikus Get the Haiku for the Single Girl Treatment

Have you seen the Department of Transportation's latest effort to keep people safe on our streets? It involves little signs with little safety messages placed in "high-crash locations" where...perhaps...people should not be stopping to read? According to NBC NY, "Half of the signs will be hung in pa ... More >>

Columbus Circle Is the Most Requested Bike Share Station Location

​Following the announcement of a bike-share program that would bring 10,000 bikes to the streets of New York City, the Department of Transportation put out a call asking for suggestions on where people wanted stations located. Yesterday, they announced that they'd gotten 5,566 individual stati ... More >>

'Safety Managers' Are Monitoring NYC Bridges to Help With Cyclist-Pedestrian Relations

​Did you bike or walk across the Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Williamsburg Bridge today? Did you see guys, or gals, in yellow vests, stationed there to prevent pedestrians and cyclists from encroaching upon each others' territory, possibly wounding, or simply being rude to one another? If you didn' ... More >>

New York City Bike Share Will Offer 10,000 Bikes; DOT Asks For Suggestions on Locations

Richard MasonerGet ready for even more bicycles!​The bike-ification of New York rolls on apace today, with the city's announcement that it has selected a partner in its much-anticipated bike-sharing program. At a press conference this afternoon, the Department of Transportation announced that ... More >>

Jeffrey Axelrod, Cyclist, Killed on Delancey Street Last Night; DOT Responds

​Yesterday at about 5:30 p.m. a 52-year-old cyclist riding on Chrystie Street was turning onto Delancey when he apparently collided with the back of a tractor-trailer, was pulled under its wheels, and was killed. He was pronounced dead at the scene. According to DNA Info, the man has been iden ... More >>

Delancey and Essex Intersection Is A Hell Zone

via​Here's a warning sounded by the Daily News today: The intersection of Essex and Delancey street is pretty much the worst place in the city to walk or drive a car or get in a taxi or do anything. Just, like, try not to go there, okay? It's scary. It's where Satan would be like, "Hey, this i ... More >>

Summer Streets Coming Back in August Without Dumpster Pools, With Guacamole

Not this year, Bill.​Today the Department of Transportation announced this year's Summer Streets program, which will close off city streets to cars in order to provide for summer fun beginning in August. This year, though, the event will be without one of its main attractions: dumpster pools. ... More >>

Artists Make Potholes Pretty

​Two photographers have turned at least two of New York City's potholes into bona fide works of art. In the world of married couple Claudia Ficca and Davide Luciano, a pothole is no longer simply a menace that jolts you face first into the Taxi TV when you're riding in a cab. Instead it is Ali ... More >>

The Upper West Side Could Get 'Limo Lanes'

​The Department of Transportation is thinking about creating "limo lanes" -- yes, lanes for limousines -- on the Upper West Side, because people who live in the Trump and Extell buildings on Riverside Drive from West 63rd to West 72nd are, apparently, causing traffic jams with their "chauffeur ... More >>

Smoking Ban in Parks, Beaches, Anywhere You Want to Smoke to Go Into Effect

​You have two weeks to smoke freely in the out-of-doors. Starting May 23, the city-wide ban on smoking in parks and beaches goes into effect. That means you can no longer smoke in Central Park, the Brooklyn Heights promenade, the Coney Island boardwalk, even the horrid pedestrian plaza outside ... More >>

NYPD Now Giving Tickets For Biking on the Wrong Part of the Street

Photo by Alex Goldmark​A blogger for Transportation Nation witnessed two cyclists being pulled over and ticketed in Manhattan for biking not on the sidewalk, but on the street -- just not in the available bike lane. According to the Department of Transportation, "you have the right to ride in ... More >>

Peanuts Safe From Persecution...For Now

​They might be the sworn enemy of moms with pre-school aged kids, but it looks like peanuts haven't gotten the ax just yet when it comes to being served on airlines.

Community Board Says 'Um, No' to DOT's Pop-Up Curb Cafés

Department of Transportation​Well, so much for the Department of Transportation's utopian vision of gutter dining in Soho: last night, Community Board 2 voted to reject all but one of the pop-up cafés that the DOT had proposed for the neighborhood. The cafés, which would extend f ... More >>

New York Bike-Licensing Bills are Weird and Probably Won't Pass, Experts Say

​Monday, Runnin' Scared reported on Assemblyman Michael DenDekker's new bicycle bills. If his proposals pass, riders across the state would have to register and tack license plates on their bikes, and submit them to yearly inspections. First-time registration would cost $25, with a yearly re ... More >>

The Blizzard of 2010: We'll Be Telling the Grandkids About This One!

Tompkins Square Park, through the snow.​Is there a name for this thing yet? Snowmaggedon? Thundersnow? Blizza-palooza? That day people were trapped outside of New York City, while those (okay, one or two) inside it actually skied to work? And the rest of us hunkered down and tried not to have ... More >>

Sidewalk ATM Crackdown! City Council Fights 'Blight' to Communities

EV Grieve​The City Council has passed a resolution to crackdown on those sidewalk ATMs. Apparently they're illegal, so while you may have to work harder to find your local bank branch next time you're strapped for cash and wandering around the East Village drunk and/or hungry, at least you won't h ... More >>

Traffic Accidents Are Killing Fewer New Yorkers; Pedestrians Still Kind of Screwed

​The Health Department and the Department of Transportation have released some new research to remind you to pay attention to what you're doing whether you're walking or driving, even if you have the light. Because you still don't want to kill someone, or be killed. Do you? The good news: New ... More >>

Michael Bloomberg to Cut 10,000 Jobs by 2012

If you were excited about yesterday's news that New York City's unemployment rate had dipped, think again. Private businesses may have added 40,000 jobs last month, but if you're a city employee, watch out: The New York Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg's quarterly budget modification, announced ye ... More >>

New York City Street Signs Now Required to Stop YELLING at Everybody, Sheesh

via the Daily News, what they look like, and what they're GONNA look like​The Federal Highway Administration wants New York Street signs to use their indoor voices. Apparently, the ALL-CAPS lettering, which has been around for more than a hundred years, is harder to read, and Lord knows how ma ... More >>

Red Hook to Get Adorable Old-School Trolleys? Only a $295,000 Transportation Study Will Tell

via Don Ross Group​A five-month study will determine if streetcars will be part of Red Hook's future transportation (rooted in its past). The study aims to find the best option to link Red Hook with surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods to "support economic development," according to the Department o ... More >>

"Rat Zoo" Discovered in Lower Manhattan

​NYC the Blog has posted a video of rats literally overrunning Collect Pond Park in Lower Manhattan, on Leonard Street between Centre and Lafayette. Of course, we're all aware that New York has a lot of rats. But seriously, this is a lot of rats. Blogger Paolo Mastrangelo saw (at his estimate) u ... More >>

New East Village Bike Lanes: Good for Bikers, Bad for Business

​The new bike lanes on First and Second Avenue that run from Houston to 34th Street are positioned between the sidewalk and a line of parked cars to protect bikers -- which means delivery trucks can no longer double park right next to businesses, causing new frustrations to downtown business o ... More >>

New York City's Infamous "Tourist Lane" Graffiti: The Culprit, Unveiled

Photo by Mark Armstrong.Click to Enlarge.​Remember the infamous "Tourist Lane" sidewalk graffiti on the corner of 22nd and 5th that - despite Mayor Bloomberg not being fond of it -- many people like us absolutely loved? Well, the culprit behind one of the wittier pieces of conceptual street ar ... More >>

Morning Links: Buses to Get Faster, Police Looking for Suspects in Sexual Assault in Central Park, Rush Limbaugh Marries Again

A rendering of the new lanes.​• Starting in October, New York City buses will get express lanes on 1st and 2nd Avenues. The Department of Transportation and the MTA hope this will improve bus travel times by 20 percent. New bike lanes will also be added to part of the route. • Two New Jer ... More >>

Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Declare Times Square Mall Permanent

​Hard to believe it was just an experiment, but the survival of the pedestrian mall opened in May at Times Square was subject to Bloomberg Administration study, and it is reported that today he will announce the mall will be permanent, or as permanent as anything is in New York City. Though th ... More >>

DOT considering traffic camera at hit-and-run intersection on Staten Island

​The Department of Transportation is actively considering installing the red-light camera requested by a local church hours before a couple of parishioners were killed at the intersection of Third Street and New Dorp Lane Wednesday.

Staten Island hit and run was a family affair

Staten Island Advance photo/Michael Oates​It makes a sort of twisted sense that Allmir Lekperic would try to find a way to wiggle out. Lekperic, 26, was driving with a suspended license when he allegedly struck and killed an elderly Staten Island couple on their way to Thanksgiving Eve mass ca ... More >>

Parental Controls For Cars Point to Our Totalitarian Future

​Just keeping tabs on our evolving police state: WCBS reports on some car technologies that car companies are offering "to help parents control the way their teenagers drive -- and, as CBS' Cindy Hsu shows us, parents don't even have to be in the car." After some palaver about what screw-ups k ... More >>

TransAlt Celebrates New DUMBO Bike Path Where Member Cracked Up

​In 2005 Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick hit a pothole on Sands Street in DUMBO and cracked up badly. So he and the rest of TransAlt are especially happy to see the Sands Street bike path completed, affording bikers coming on and off the Manhattan Bridge, or just tooling around the n ... More >>

Bloody Ad Campaign Encourages Drivers to Stop Killing Cyclists

Nagging cyclists to stop breaking traffic rules is just one prong of the drive to keep two-wheelers safe. You also have to get drivers of motor vehicles to stopping dooring, crowding, and otherwise menacing cyclists. New York City Bicycle Safety Coalition, working with the Department of Transporta ... More >>

Study: Seniors Hit By Cars 40 Times More Often Than Kids

We all pay attention when children get run over, but Transportation Alternatives asks us to also consider the grim chances old people take on the streets: their new report finds that "the fatality rate of senior pedestrians is 40 times greater than that of child pedestrians in Manhattan." They also ... More >>

The Cross-Borough Bike Lane Revolution

Design Competition Seeks to Make Red Hook Bike-Friendly

City Creates Seven-Mile Car-Free Path for 'Summer Streets'

Bike Group Disputes City Stats on Strike Cycling

Neighbors Miffed Over Missing Cube

Even the sculptor was surprised to hear the news